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ERP terms, in plain English

50 terms that come up in almost every implementation conversation. No jargon defined with more jargon.

AP / Accounts Payable

What you owe suppliers. The module handles bills, payment runs and supplier ageing.

AR / Accounts Receivable

What customers owe you. Covers invoicing, receipts, credit limits and ageing.

Batch

A quantity produced or received together, tracked as a unit for traceability and expiry.

BOM / Bill of Materials

The list of components and quantities needed to make one unit of a product.

Chart of accounts

The structure of ledger accounts your financial statements are built from.

Cost centre

A department or location that costs are attributed to for reporting.

Cycle count

Counting a rotating slice of stock continuously instead of one annual shutdown.

Doctype

In ERPNext, a document type. Custom doctypes model processes the standard app does not ship.

Dunning

Automated chasing of overdue payments or failed card charges.

FEFO

First expired, first out. Picking rule that ships the shortest-dated stock first.

FIFO

First in, first out. A stock valuation method using oldest cost first.

GL / General Ledger

The master record of every financial transaction in the business.

Go-live

The date the new system becomes the system of record and the old one stops.

Landed cost

Item cost including freight, duty and clearing, not just the supplier price.

Lead time

Time between placing an order and receiving it. Drives reorder calculations.

MRP

Material requirements planning. Turns demand into purchase and production suggestions.

Multi-tenancy

One system instance serving multiple organisations with isolated data.

Opening balance

The financial position carried into the new system at the cut-off date.

Parallel run

Operating old and new systems together for one period to prove the new one.

Period close

Locking a financial period so entries can no longer be posted into it.

PO / Purchase Order

A commitment to buy. Should reduce available budget the moment it is raised.

Reorder level

The stock quantity that triggers a replenishment suggestion.

Retention

A percentage of a contract held back until completion, common in contracting.

Routing

The sequence of operations and work centres used to manufacture an item.

Serial number

A unique identifier per individual unit, used for warranty and traceability.

SKU

Stock keeping unit. A single, distinctly stocked item.

Sub-ledger

Detailed records behind a control account, such as customer or supplier balances.

Three-way match

Checking purchase order, goods receipt and invoice agree before payment.

Trial balance

A listing of all ledger balances, used to prove the books balance.

UAT

User acceptance testing. Your users testing with real documents before go-live.

VAT

Value added tax. Treatment should sit on the item and customer, not be typed per invoice.

Work order

An instruction to produce a quantity of an item, consuming materials and time.

Work centre

A machine or group of machines that operations are scheduled against.

Yield

Actual output from a production run compared with the expected standard.

WPS (Wage Protection System)

Qatar's system for paying wages through banks under Ministry of Labour supervision. Payroll must produce a bank-ready salary file within seven days of the due date.

QID (Qatar ID)

The residence identity card every employee holds. HR systems track its expiry alongside the residence permit, passport and contract.

GTA (General Tax Authority)

Qatar's tax authority. Companies register on its Dhareeba portal, hold a tax card and file the annual income tax return there.

Dhareeba

The General Tax Authority's online portal for tax registration, returns, withholding tax and tax cards.

GRSIA

The General Retirement and Social Insurance Authority, which collects monthly pension contributions for Qatari employees.

Withholding tax

A 5 percent tax deducted from certain payments to non-resident suppliers, remitted monthly to the General Tax Authority by the paying company.

ICV / Tawteen

In-Country Value: the localisation score used by QatarEnergy and other buyers to reward local spend, local workforce and local suppliers when awarding contracts.

Qatarization

The national programme to raise the share of Qatari nationals in the workforce, with targets and reporting in energy and other sectors.

Manateq

Qatar's industrial and logistics zones operator, whose zones host most of the country's manufacturers and warehouses.

QFC (Qatar Financial Centre)

A business platform with its own regulator, tax regime and employment regulations, mainly for financial and professional services firms.

QFZA

The Qatar Free Zones Authority, which licenses companies in the Ras Bufontas and Umm Alhoul free zones with their own incentives.

Monaqasat

The Ministry of Finance e-procurement portal through which government tenders in Qatar are published and bid.

Al Nadeeb

The customs clearance system of the General Authority of Customs, used for import and export declarations at Hamad Port and the airport.

PDPPL

Qatar's Personal Data Privacy Protection Law, which governs how customer and employee data is collected, stored and shared.

NAPS / QPay

NAPS is Qatar's national debit-card switch; QPay is a local payment gateway. Both are common ways Qatari customers pay online and in store.

End-of-service gratuity

The lump sum due to an employee on leaving, calculated under the Qatar Labour Law at three weeks' basic wage for each year of service.

Based in Doha, working across Qatar

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